


Same Old Dance

by Marlena_Owens



Category: Harlots (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 18:30:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20158132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlena_Owens/pseuds/Marlena_Owens
Summary: Nancy's musings as the group hurriedly determines the arrangements that can be made following the accident.One-shot. Drabble.Rating includes canon-compliant references to mature material on the show. Spoilers up to S3E3.





	Same Old Dance

"We're not decent people." 

I say it because it's true. 

Charlotte's been murdered, and likely by the coward she's tupping. Was tupping. 

Maggie's the gunpowder that's ignited this whole blow-up. 

William's the one who's steadfastly stayed, for all the good it hasn't done him. 

Fitzwilliam's been at the mercy of men and society in ways I understand, and her whore has died at her illegal boxing affair. 

Lucy has got herself tightly weaved into a dangerous tapestry of deviance and deceit. 

And then there's me. The deviant among the outcasts. The indecent side of London's Cheapside. The woman of the night who earns her coin by immasculation and a rod of a harsh variety. 

The one who understands just how hard Margaret Wells can bite. I've seen Mags through all the secrets and shit and stink and shillings for the better part of 25 years. 

She's right. She's laid out many girls along the way, lost to disease and hunger and violence and poverty. 

It's been me to light the candles and wipe the dried blood from cold bodies. Often the one to carry out the dirtier tasks whilst Mags tends to necessities of a more delicate nature... brushing dulled hair or stroking unfeeling hands. It isn't like she has to ask me. We've done this dance for years with the familiarity of an old whore and her favorite cull. I am eager to please nobody but Margaret Wells. 

Lucy's right. Charlotte is brave (was). 

For every act of bravery Charlotte's dashed into with nary a care outside of her own sense of justice, Lucy's calculated and belabored herself into inaction. 

For every ounce of eager dazzle that Charlotte is (was), Lucy is stoic consideration. 

Oh, how history repeats itself in the cruellest manner. 

For every ounce of tenderness and maternal whimsy Maggie is, I'm hardness and dirty little back alley jobs. 

Very few would describe Margaret Wells as tender or particularly maternal. Draw your own conclusion as to how much I enjoy being the one to steal sacks of coin, carry a babe down a staircase full of hellfire, or constantly chase that scum Quigley away from the Wells door. 

If my birch rod could talk, the secrets it would spill. 

It's always been this way, for indecent folks like us. Forced into roles nobody wants and situations that make you fight dirty and die young anyway. 

As it has been for thousands of years. 

Quigley, who crossed the paths of me and Maggie many years ago and who forced us into a tender, unbreakable bond forged to thwart snakelike attempts to turn one against the other. 

She's mourning the loss of Charlotte without fully understanding the very recent and prominent role dear little Magpie has played in this penny dreadful. 

She favored Charlotte over Maggie, and her love for the pair far surpassed the bitter tolerance she mustered for Charles. 

I understand her love for precious Charlotte, who was everything Maggie was and was not all at the same time. Charlotte was beautiful like her mother in a way that was not yet broken by 25 years in the trade. 

I fucking hate Quigley ever more for our mutual despair-- but she knows not how cocked up the whole affair has become. 

Nobody does. 

Not like me. 

My lot and I may not be decent, but we are people. People deserving of respect in death just as in life. 

People who cannot afford much more than a few handfuls of grave dirt and pints for the party, but who will send you upriver with the most heartfelt of songs and sincerest good-byes. People who will make damn sure you're respected in death as you should have been in life. 

Nobody loves or mourns quite like those whose lot are in a constant state of pushing open death's door. 

Right now, I most respect Isabella for allowing us to send our gem away surrounded by the beauty and sparkle and luster she so dearly craved and yearned to embody. 


End file.
